Vote now or forever hold your peace
You can put a brake on the runaway Trump train
I usually roll my eyes when political candidates bluster that a given election is the most important in our lifetime. I generally scoff at hyperbolic claims that an upcoming vote will permanently change our country and that it’s a matter of existential importance for me to cast a ballot for Candidate X.
Now that you know I’m not just another Peter crying “wolf,” maybe you’ll listen when I say: The midterm elections matter. A lot. Vote this time or forever hold your peace.
The reasons are many, but one stands above all: Donald Trump. If you don’t want the man in the White House and those who adore him to continue their assault on democratic values, on human beings who don’t fit their idea of real Americans, on the very notion of truth and facts, there is something you can do — something that is more powerful than watching “Saturday Night Live” send-ups and sharing antiTrump posts on social media.
You can put a brake on this runaway train by voting.
I know it can be a pain. Byzantine registration rules, suspect voter-roll purges, long lines at poorly resourced polling places, the peculiar tradition of elections on Tuesdays when most of us have to work — these and other factors seem designed to discourage voting.
The deterrents have the predictable effect, especially among younger adults. A survey released this month finds that only a third of 18- to 29-yearolds are certain they will vote in the upcoming elections, compared with the 81 percent of those 65 and older.
This, even though the younger demographic has so much at stake for the future — from crumbling infrastructure, to unaddressed climate change, to a culture poisoned by hate-based rhetoric and its violent consequences (such as the evil visited upon Pittsburgh last weekend).
If politicians knew that mortgaging the future would cost them elections, they wouldn’t mortgage it. When they are confident voters won’t hold them accountable, they do what comes natu- rally: whatever the most powerful and moneyed interests want them to do.
To paraphrase the famous Joni Mitchell song, we often don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone. That could happen with our right to vote if we don’t head off ominous developments before they are unstoppable.
Legislatures in some Republicancontrolled states are erecting new obstacles to voting, all affecting younger and nonwhite people the most — those most likely to vote for Democrats, in other words. Aggressive gerrymandering is blunting the impact of their votes if these unwanted democracy participants do persist and cast ballots.
If you’re in the affected demographics, this should be tremendously motivating. Vote because they don’t want you to.
If you forfeit the right? Cable news host Joe Scarborough summed up the situation accurately in a recent rant about Trump and his enablers: “If after two years of this Democrats still decide to stay home ... well, then they and we get the government we deserve.”
The power-holders are counting on you to listen to the discouraging voice in your head. The voice telling you it will be a boring hassle to vote on Tuesday, that you don’t really know enough to vote, and that it would not make much difference if you did. The voice telling you that politics suck and all candidates are equally lame and corrupt. That’s the voice to ignore.
The one to heed is the voice telling you that the direction of your society and your prospects of a dignified life are at stake. The one telling you that in this election more than most, voting is caring — caring about LGBT Americans, people of color, immigrants from “s---hole” countries, sexual assault survivors — all targets of the Trumpians and all under threat of losing their rights and rightful place in society. It’s the voice telling you that voting is an act of noncompliance with political forces that want you to be quiet.
Stand up to defy those who are counting on your apathy. Vote. While you still can.
Tom Krattenmaker, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors, is the author of “Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower.”